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America's newest businesses are being started by an increasingly diverse set of entrepreneurs

Last week, Forbes contributor Alan Hall (investor, entrepreneur and author) famously addressed the national trend toward entrepreneurship in his article Kiss Your Boss Goodbye. It’s Time to Be An Entrepreneur. Clearly he’s hit a hot button (or perhaps a resonant chord?) If you missed that article, you can find it here.

Given the level of interest, I’d like to take a closer look at those who are taking the plunge. I spoke with Jack Sunderlage, Executive Vice President of National Sales for Grow America, the company Alan Hall has founded and is expanding with the help of national sponsors to support entrepreneurs.

Jack is a highly accomplished executive who has held key roles in companies ranging from Burroughs, UNISYS, Digital Equipment, Compaq Computer, and Hewlett-Packard to ContentWatch, the company that produces Net Nanny. (Among many other recognitions, in 2010 he was named International Executive of the Year by the World Trade Center Utah and the World Trade Association of Utah.)

That equates to 543,000 new U.S. companies every month. (We can’t annualize this number by simply multiplying by 12, Kauffman notes, since some entrepreneurs are in and out of multiple businesses during that time. However, multiple estimates put the total number of U.S. entrepreneurs at 11.5 million, in sum.)

There is a significant gender gap in entrepreneurial activity. Male entrepreneurs outnumber females by a ratio of 2 to 1. Why? While half of the workforce and half of all college students are women, their ability to launch high-growth companies (with revenues above the $1M mark) is lagging badly behind. The Kauffman report Growing the Economy: Women Entrepreneurs, recommends we not view the imbalance as a gender discrimination issue, but as a factor that is creating a major economic deficit. I agree. Imagine this: if women-owned startups (those poised on high growth and revenue above the $1M target) were on par with men’s, this vastly unrealized resource could make a major impact on our national (and even global) economy. We should all work together as communities and through private and public initiatives to help put this tremendous set of under-tapped resources to optimal use.

Entrepreneurs Are Young

Next, Sunderlage notes that a high number of new entrepreneurs—nearly 30 percent – are age 20-34, accounting for 270 new companies per 100,000 U.S. adults every month. For these young entrepreneurs, access to funding and understanding of the pros and cons of the various varieties of funding is a critical key. Access to appropriate mentoring is essential as well.

Boomers Are Becoming New Entrepreneurs

Also interesting is that the group with the highest index for new entrepreneurial activity is in the sector of individuals 45-54 years of age, reflecting the aging population and their increasing interest (or outright need) to become entrepreneurs.

Forbes contributor and entrepreneurial author Marty Zwilling has written about entrepreneurship becoming the new “mid-life crisis” for this strong demographic who are entering the entrepreneurial workforce due to the economy, due to longer and healthier life spans, or even due to the opportunity and unfulfilled desire to become a first-time entrepreneur.

Entrepreneurs Are Ethnic

Entrepreneurial activity among ethnic groups is gaining traction as well. 39.8 percent of the nation’s current 11.5 million entrepreneurs belong to non-Caucasian ethnicities. 22.9 percent are Latino.

Again, private and public initiatives should align to create initiatives to answer the unmet needs of prospective entrepreneurs in each of these burgeoning demographics.

Sunderlage points out that initiatives can be highly successful when they are supported by regional and local efforts to lift the economy one community at a time. For more information about Grow America’s efforts he suggests visiting www.GrowAm.com.

I’d like to discuss the demographics and issues of new entrepreneurial companies in more depth in the months to come. But in the meantime, it is clear that the current surge of new entrepreneurs comprise a highly varied and unique demographic.

Entrepreneurial companies (fast growth companies under 5 years old) have added 40 million jobs to the U.S. economy over the past 30 years, and are highly poised to impact the jobs situation as well as the national economy over the next several years. For the sake of our current and future economy, there is high incentive for those who support entrepreneurship to address the needs of these groups as strongly as we possibly can.